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Re: A Little Too Generous



It is Sunday, I came to the office to catch up on e-mail and also
uncover all the computers since the University was closed on
Friday, expecting Hurricane/Tropical Storm Helene to hit us then.

I have served on several grant-making boards and although I would
expect to see letters of permission, I can easily see grants getting
approved for the project of creating a Civil Rights site...simply saying
you're going to post 10,000 documents from various archives.  Too
many of the folks on grant-making boards are appointments and most
know nothing of copyright, ownership, etc. when it comes to archival
documents.

My first inclination was to suggest refusing the request, but my second
inclination is to use the grant award with the understanding the materials
are posted on the archives site....digitized locally, etc.   Let the grantee
do the work....that way you maintain control, satisfy the grant (a collabora-
tion) and it looks like a win-win situation for both the university and the
grantee.

I'm presently working on a similar situation where an organization
has been given a "grant" to transcribe and publish some 30 or more
oral history interviews that we own.   The grantee showed up on our
doorstep, expecting me to simply hand over the 20-year-old audio-
tapes.   I am working with them and fortunately we have releases on
some of them granting the university any and all rights, and I have
no objections to transcribing, etc.   Our present problem is that possibly
1/3 of the tapes have no releases...and I'm having our university attorney
review our options in this case.    Because the oral histories cover a
minority community in which there are different and opposing minority
viewpoints, ill well among different organizations, and the like...we don't
want to get caught in the middle of a political and emotional crisis.

Dean
Dean DeBolt
University Librarian
Special Collections and West Florida Archives
John C. Pace Library
University of West Florida
11000 University Parkway
Pensacola, FL  32514-5750
Tele:  850-474-2213;   Fax:  850-474-3338

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